A $20 Bill and Some Great Results: Card Show Recap #10

Against my better judgment, I went to the baseball card show this past Sunday as a way to treat myself for the long weekend. With that being said, I've spent way too much money on cards as of late so I knew I had to set a limit. Therefore, I decided to walk into the show with a $20 bill. I didn't bring anything else so I wouldn't have any ways of going crazy at the show like I have in the past.

I didn't really have the time to go through the dime bins and find 200 cards, nor did I want to put 200 more cards away anytime soon. So, I went to my favorite vendor at the show, but instead of looking through dime bins, I went right for his stacks of Red Sox cards as well as other insert cards that were scattered around the table.

He had 4 stacks of Red Sox inserts/parallels/rookie cards lined up in a row on the table, so I began looking through them. I didn't always find cards I needed in these piles, but this time was a different story. Instantly, these 2 Dustin Pedroia chrome cards jumped out at me. The first is a refractor from 2012 chrome while the 2nd is a prism refractor from 2017, both of which were going for $1 each. 

Also within the Red Sox stack was a card that ended up being a need for my 2018 Topps Heritage set. Now that I have this Chris Sale New Age Performers card, which was going for just a quarter more than the Pedroia cards, puts me over halfway to completing the insert set with just 11 cards to go. Additionally, the Chris Sale Tarot of the Diamond insert at the top of this post is one of my favorite cards I've gotten in a while. It's my first insert from that set, but I guarantee it will not be the last.

However, it wasn't all Red Sox cards. In fact, I picked up a couple Best Cuts inserts from 2017 Bowman's Best of 2 players I collect in Hank Aaron and Jeff Bagwell. The Aaron is the base insert card, but the Jeff Bagwell is actually an atomic refractor insert parallel, which I know is somewhat of a rare card. I don't know much about the 2017 Bowman's Best set, but I was able to snag this card for $3 when I'm pretty sure it's fairly rare, so I'm quite happy about that.

After picking up a couple non-Red Sox cards, I resumed where I left off in the Red Sox stacks. I did this by selecting a couple cards of Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski that each cost me about $1. The first one is an insert from 2001 Topps American Pie, but I'm not too sure what the one on the right is. The card number is 142, but I had no luck finding it on COMC. No matter what, I'm still a big fan of the card design since it resembles some kind of Topps Finest set to a degree.

Although his batting average has been casually dipping for a couple of weeks now, I'm still going all-in with my attempt to collect as many cards as I can of Rafael Devers. That's why I paid $2 for this 2017 Bowman Platinum prospect card. He's picked it up at 3rd base defensively (for now), so all he really needs to learn is how to become a better contact hitter. On the bright side, the 21-year old already has some postseason experience which is something that will definitely set him apart from other young players.

I also sprung for a 2017 Topps Gallery rookie card of Andrew Benintendi since I'm also looking to collect as many cards of him as I can, rookie cards in particular. Unlike Devers, Andrew Benintendi is currently playing exceptional baseball. In fact, he came a double shy of the cycle not once, but twice in the last 3 games (Saturday and Monday). He and Moreland are currently the best left-handed hitters the team has, so he has a fair amount of pressure on him to rise to the occasion.

With $5 left in my budget, I wanted to find something special, so I turned my attention to the section where the dealer keeps cards from new releases. I had narrowed it down to 2 choices; a Shoehi Ohtani rookie card from 2018 Bowman or...

This gorgeous Ben Zobrist autograph from 2018 Topps Tier 1, yes they were really the same price.

I'll take any chance I can to get autographs of players from the 2016 World Champion Cubs team, let alone the World Series MVP himself. Tier 1 was released just 4 days before I went to the card show, and the card is even numbered 79/110. Nothing against Ohtani, but I'd rather take an auto of a guy who ultimately won the Cubs their first World Series in over a century over a rookie card of someone who hasn't even played 1/3 of a season.